The Score (Off-Campus #3)(100)
Still, I can’t say I’m not bummed when I have to leave Connecticut. Although Dean had told me his parents were cool, laidback peeps, a part of me had doubted it. I mean, they’re filthy-rich lawyers who own three houses. Hell, maybe more than three. Dean doesn’t have a bragging bone in his body, so for all I know, his family has a house in every country on the globe.
You’d never know it just by looking at them, though. Dean’s mom wore jeans and a flannel shirt the whole time I was in Greenwich, confessing to me that her favorite thing about having time off is ditching the business attire she wears to the firm. Her name is Lori, and apparently she kept her maiden name and practices law as Lori Heyward.
Dean’s dad, Peter, is equally easygoing. He did some paperwork in his office every morning, but for the most part, he spent all his time with his kids, going skiing with Summer, playing two-on-one hockey with his sons on the outdoor rink behind their mansion. Yep, they have their own skating rink.
Dean’s brother Nick is one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. He brought his new girlfriend, a lawyer at another firm, and though she was uptight at first, she was sweet once I got to know her.
And Summer…well, she’s just Summer. No filters, larger than life, contagious laughter. Sometimes I think I love Dean’s sister more than I love him.
As sad as I am to say goodbye to the Heyward-Di Laurentises, I’m excited to see my dad. I decide to splurge and take a cab from Greenwich to Brooklyn, and it’s late afternoon when I roll my huge suitcase into the front entryway and call out for my father.
I find him in the living room, wearing sweats and reading a book called The Physics of Hockey. He greets me with an indulgent smile, then fusses and gripes as I kiss his cheek and hammer him with questions about how he’s feeling. He finally cuts me off to ask about my visit to Connecticut. When I reveal what an amazing time it was, he looks slightly disappointed, which makes me frown.
We speak on the phone a couple times a week, so he’s already aware I’m dating Dean, but he’s been surprisingly tight-lipped about it. After I told him, he simply grunted and hasn’t commented on the relationship since.
He comments now.
“He’s not long-term, AJ,” Dad says with a tired sigh. “I hope you know that.”
The blunt words sting. I mean, it’s not like Dean and I are planning to mail out save-the-dates next week, but I don’t envision us breaking up anytime soon. We’re twenty-two. We’re in love. Going forward might be tough, what with me in LA or New York, and Dean in Cambridge for the next two years, but I’m certain we can make it work if we try hard at it. And once Dean finishes law school, he’ll be able to practice law wherever he wants. Wherever I am. We haven’t discussed it, but Dean hasn’t given me any indication he wants to break up after graduation.
“He could be,” I say quietly. “Long-term, I mean.”
Dad gives an adamant shake of his head. “He’s not.” His voice loses some of its hard edges. “Do you want to know the most important thing I learned after eighteen years with your mom?”
I sit on the couch beside him and wait for him to continue.
“Relationships are a f*cking pain in the ass sometimes.”
I have to laugh. “Mom told me the same thing.” The thought of the last conversation I had with my mother brings an ache to my heart. “She told me you guys had problems at one point in your marriage,” I confess. I’ve never discussed this with him before. Mom had been open about their struggles, though. Not in detail, but she did make sure I knew how hard they’d worked on their marriage.
“We did,” he confirms in a pained voice. “It was the traveling. Eva gave up modeling after you were born, so she was always at home. And I was always on the road.” He gives me a fierce look. “I never touched another woman, AJ. That’s not what our issues were about.”
“I know.”
“It was goddamn hard. The long separations. The brief phone calls. I’d come home and we’d feel like strangers, have to get to know each other all over again. It took a lot of effort to work through that.” Agony flashes in his eyes. “Then she got sick, and it got even harder.”
A lump forms in my throat. I was twelve when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. I remember begging to go with them whenever Dad drove her to chemo. They never let me, and on the days where the side effects were too debilitating, when her skin was grayer than ash and she was vomiting so violently she’d cracked a rib, they would send me to my aunt in Queens. They hadn’t wanted me to see her like that. But I saw enough.
“Dean…” My father clears his throat, shifting the subject again. “I know men like him. They aren’t equipped to handle the big stuff. The life-changing setbacks. The game-changers. If you—God forbid—got sick? Or injured? Or if a recession descends on this country and bankrupts your man’s empire?” A disdainful note bites into his tone. “He’d fall apart like a cheap tent.”
“That’s not true,” I protest. “Dean is a good man. And he’s good to me. Good for me.”
“You’re fooling yourself, AJ. Yes, he’s good to you—now. He lives a perfect life. He pays other people to clean up his messes. And as long as everything keeps going his way, he’ll be the best thing that ever happened to you. But if shit goes south? He’ll be gone. He won’t stand by you, because that would entail stepping out of his perfect bubble, letting the ugly stuff in. That boy doesn’t do ugly.”